Page 78 of The Lyon Returns
“Go on,” she urged.
His nostrils flared as he inhaled, long and deep. He shook his head in vehement denial.
And she knew what he’d started to ask. She swallowed. “You want to know if I…” she prodded.
He arched a brow. His large hand at the small of her back applied the merest pressure, bringing their bodies closer, her torso higher.
She shifted, helping the process, shivering as she felt his other hand slide under her loose bun to wrap around the nape of her neck.
His eyes turned molten as if her body’s reaction fueled one of his own.
Why wouldn’t he ask as he had before? She wanted him to, desperately, and was fairly sure he could read that truth in her eyes.
Though his vivid gaze smoldered with pent-up desire, he would not ask, she realized with stunning certainty. If she wanted his kiss, she would have to say the words.
She wanted his kiss like she’d never wanted anything in her life.
“Gideon, would it be all right if I…if we…Will you please kiss me?”
Chapter Twenty-One
At last.
Gwen’s sweet plea was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. He dragged her pliant body closer, cupping her crown to draw her face to meet his as he rose up to take her mouth in a kiss it seemed he had waited for, for an eternity. She tasted so sweet. Like the mint she must have used to clean her teeth before they departed and something uniquely Gwen, and he couldn’t get enough of the intoxicating elixir.
Neither, it seemed, could she. She clung to him, arms straining, tiny tremors coursing through her body that fueled the raging fire of need threatening to consume him.
He could not draw her close enough, though God knew he tried. His hands roamed over her, greedy, desperate, memorizing the curve of her back, the gentle swell of her hips, the plush feel of her bottom as he nestled her hips into his.
His cock pulsed as if it had a life all its own, rigid to the point of pain and screaming with the need for release. He had no reference, no guide to navigate this all-consuming desire. He wanted everything, all of her, all at once. Her mouth, her tongue, her breasts, the sweetnectar between her thighs.
“Gideon, I feel so strange…please…this is like nothing I’ve ever known,” she whispered against his lips before loosing a tiny mew, the sound one of half pleasure, half pain.
Exactly as he felt, except…What had she just said?Like nothing I’ve ever known—words reminiscent of the night he’d kissed her in his chamber and she’d reacted like an untouched innocent. She couldn’t be. She was a widow.
And yet…
Calling on every ounce of willpower he possessed, he reined in his wild hunger, gentled his kiss, his touch. Instead of feasting, he sipped. Instead of devouring, he savored. He nibbled along her jaw toward her ear, nipped at her delicate lobe.
The scorching flames of desire driving him burned just as hot, but now, an unfamiliar tenderness, almost painful in its intensity, welled up inside him. “Sweetheart,” he began. “You’ve been with a man, surely? Your husband?”
“Of course,” she answered without hesitation.
Relief flashed through him, and a disquieting sense of disappointment he didn’t care to examine.
Then she pressed her heated face to his neck. “But it wasn’t like this.”
He gulped in air. “Not like this?” he echoed, his words halting as he tried to make them make sense.
She shook her head, face still burrowed under his jaw and he began to understand.
Shivering with longing the likes of which he’d never known, he wrapped his arms around her, one palm cupping her crown, and executed a series of twists, bends and turns to reverse their positions in the cramped space, somehow not surprised when Gwen erupted briefly in giggles.
When he was through, he knelt on the carpet between the benchesand drank in the sight of her lying atop the cushion, skirts tangled, legs hanging over the edge. She gazed up at him, her expression a combination of curiosity, wonder, and unmasked desire.
Hands shaking, he untied the ribbon beneath her bodice. She sucked in a breath but made no protest as he loosened the fabric, shimmying it down to expose the creamy swells of her breasts and their cresting, rosy nipples.
Sweet Heaven above. He cupped her breasts in his palms, feeling almost guilty for sullying her perfection with his touch, but unable to resist doing so. Heart hammering like an anvil in his chest, he lifted his gaze to hers and slowly lowered his head. “Not like this?” he whispered.
